When it rains...
I'm halfway through my week o' crap. For some reason, everything has culminated into this week. I have several large meetings at work (which all require lots of paperwork) including the Meeting From Hell (which is tomorrow), report cards were due, and I had to do this massive training for Early Intervention. EI is my side job that is fun but the credentialing process is a gargantuan pain in the ass.

Let's talk about the EI training first: it's usually three days in person, but they did start online modules (this year!) so you can do those and then attend a one-day mandatory meeting. The one-day mandatory meeting? Doesn't occur for another few months, so it had to be today. I'm grateful since going for ONE day is waaaay better than going for three, but I'll complain still. See, I was initially told that the online training would be like an hour and a half or two. Wrong. It ended up being 26 different modules that ranged from 15 minutes to 45 minutes each. It took me about a week to get done. Oy. The in-person training today was definitely relatively painless, though, and it was nice to get some questions answered and to meet some other providers.

[Another observation: Early Intervention people tend to have little terms for the kids, which I love. Usually it's stuff like: "little guy," or "kiddo," or "little one." Today I heard a new one that I adore the most. The trainer referred to the kids she sees as "cookies."]

The training today was at a far-away suburb, and because of the terrible weather last night, the roads were covered with fresh salt. I drove on three different highways and by the time I was nearing my destination, my windshield was absolutely frosted with salt and I was helpless since my windshield wiper fluid was frozen solid. Every time I tried it, my wipers would spread the salt around, kind of like frosting a cake. It was getting kind of scary, so much so that I ended up pulling into a little side street so I could wipe stuff down (yay for Clorox wipes!). But, as I pulled into the side street my tires lost traction on the accumulated snow and my civic did a complete 180. It was extremely frightening, but luckily, no one was behind me and no one was coming. I just took a deep breath, righted the car, and got the car into some random parking lot.

My level of bitterness at that point for having to haul ass to the way out suburbs and risk life and limb for a training I didn't want to attend? High.

So, yeah, the training ended up being okay and I got home safely (although I did get a random scattershot pebble/rock hit my car causing the tiniest of cracks).

Now I have to prep for Meeting from Hell tomorrow. The good news is that I am slated to present first, and I will get it over with. In fact, I feel almost ecstatic that it will soon be done with and I no longer have to dread this damn thing! And after that, two more meetings, and lots of kids to make up.

I foresee being dead to the world tomorrow evening.